Reciprocal engagement is a theory of a basic social process that addresses how an organization establishes, maintains, and develops its enterprise by focusing on strengthening its relationships with other actors. It rests on the rationale that one’s relationships are foremost dependent on how well one manages to engage others. If one’s own engagement is demonstrated to others, it stimulates them to respond with actions of engagement in return. When they do respond in such a manner, it expresses an appreciation of a relationship and a will to contribute to maintaining it. The process of reciprocal engagement consists of two categories of actions, i.e. convincing manifestation and caring embrace, each of which has three dimensions of actions. The dimensions of convincing manifestation are framing, meriting, and avowing and of caring embrace they are friending, enriching, and opportunizing. Together these actions imply that to influence others’ willingness to act engaged, an actor such as an organization needs to mediate trustworthy messages that demonstrate and assure them of its identity and intentions. It also needs to treat and include them in a way that they can relate to as having a meaning of personal and/or social value to them. As the theory can be seen as conceptualizing marketing related behaviors, its practical and theoretical contribution is that of a model of thinking that argues that marketing should be viewed as a relationship developing process of interactive communicative actions with rhetorical and creative features. The research that led to the discovery of the theory aimed its attention at an art museum and its interaction with various external actors in its surrounding environment. In order to discover the main pattern of behaviors that take place in interactions as a consequence of the museum’s main area of concerns, the classical grounded theory method was used. It is an empirical reflective method that has an inductive and conceptual approach to research.

Given the important role that business media play in corporate life, scarce attention has been paid to the role of media in the construction and popularization of corporate social responsibility (CSR). In this article, we understand media as a key infomediary and examine how the business press has framed and presented CSR over the last 10 years. Based on a content analysis of how CSR is presented in two English-language business newspapers with an international readership, we develop a framework for understanding the role of business media setting the corporate CSR agenda. The results show that business media contribute to the construction of what CSR means in corporate practice by creating links between CSR and certain corporate activities, between CSR and arguments that strengthen the view of CSR as a business case, and between CSR and certain spokespersons. These links contribute to create a notion of what CSR stands for, what it means in practice, and why it is important that one should pay attention to.

BACKGROUND: The spectrum of disorders of the brain is large, covering hundreds of disorders that are listed in either the mental or neurological disorder chapters of the established international diagnostic classification systems. These disorders have a high prevalence as well as short- and long-term impairments and disabilities. Therefore they are an emotional, financial and social burden to the patients, their families and their social network. In a 2005 landmark study, we estimated for the first time the annual cost of 12 major groups of disorders of the brain in Europe and gave a conservative estimate of €386 billion for the year 2004. This estimate was limited in scope and conservative due to the lack of sufficiently comprehensive epidemiological and/or economic data on several important diagnostic groups. We are now in a position to substantially improve and revise the 2004 estimates. In the present report we cover 19 major groups of disorders, 7 more than previously, of an increased range of age groups and more cost items. We therefore present much improved cost estimates. Our revised estimates also now include the new EU member states, and hence a population of 514 million people.AIMS: To estimate the number of persons with defined disorders of the brain in Europe in 2010, the total cost per person related to each disease in terms of direct and indirect costs, and an estimate of the total cost per disorder and country.METHODS: The best available estimates of the prevalence and cost per person for 19 groups of disorders of the brain (covering well over 100 specific disorders) were identified via a systematic review of the published literature. Together with the twelve disorders included in 2004, the following range of mental and neurologic groups of disorders is covered: addictive disorders, affective disorders, anxiety disorders, brain tumor, childhood and adolescent disorders (developmental disorders), dementia, eating disorders, epilepsy, mental retardation, migraine, multiple sclerosis, neuromuscular disorders, Parkinson's disease, personality disorders, psychotic disorders, sleep disorders, somatoform disorders, stroke, and traumatic brain injury. Epidemiologic panels were charged to complete the literature review for each disorder in order to estimate the 12-month prevalence, and health economic panels were charged to estimate best cost-estimates. A cost model was developed to combine the epidemiologic and economic data and estimate the total cost of each disorder in each of 30 European countries (EU27+Iceland, Norway and Switzerland). The cost model was populated with national statistics from Eurostat to adjust all costs to 2010 values, converting all local currencies to Euro, imputing costs for countries where no data were available, and aggregating country estimates to purchasing power parity adjusted estimates for the total cost of disorders of the brain in Europe 2010.RESULTS: The total cost of disorders of the brain was estimated at €798 billion in 2010. Direct costs constitute the majority of costs (37% direct healthcare costs and 23% direct non-medical costs) whereas the remaining 40% were indirect costs associated with patients' production losses. On average, the estimated cost per person with a disorder of the brain in Europe ranged between €285 for headache and €30,000 for neuromuscular disorders. The European per capita cost of disorders of the brain was €1550 on average but varied by country. The cost (in billion €PPP 2010) of the disorders of the brain included in this study was as follows: addiction: €65.7; anxiety disorders: €74.4; brain tumor: €5.2; child/adolescent disorders: €21.3; dementia: €105.2; eating disorders: €0.8; epilepsy: €13.8; headache: €43.5; mental retardation: €43.3; mood disorders: €113.4; multiple sclerosis: €14.6; neuromuscular disorders: €7.7; Parkinson's disease: €13.9; personality disorders: €27.3; psychotic disorders: €93.9; sleep disorders: €35.4; somatoform disorder: €21.2; stroke: €64.1; traumatic brain injury: €33.0. It should be noted that the revised estimate of those disorders included in the previous 2004 report constituted €477 billion, by and large confirming our previous study results after considering the inflation and population increase since 2004. Further, our results were consistent with administrative data on the health care expenditure in Europe, and comparable to previous studies on the cost of specific disorders in Europe. Our estimates were lower than comparable estimates from the US.DISCUSSION: This study was based on the best currently available data in Europe and our model enabled extrapolation to countries where no data could be found. Still, the scarcity of data is an important source of uncertainty in our estimates and may imply over- or underestimations in some disorders and countries. Even though this review included many disorders, diagnoses, age groups and cost items that were omitted in 2004, there are still remaining disorders that could not be included due to limitations in the available data. We therefore consider our estimate of the total cost of the disorders of the brain in Europe to be conservative. In terms of the health economic burden outlined in this report, disorders of the brain likely constitute the number one economic challenge for European health care, now and in the future. Data presented in this report should be considered by all stakeholder groups, including policy makers, industry and patient advocacy groups, to reconsider the current science, research and public health agenda and define a coordinated plan of action of various levels to address the associated challenges.RECOMMENDATIONS: Political action is required in light of the present high cost of disorders of the brain. Funding of brain research must be increased; care for patients with brain disorders as well as teaching at medical schools and other health related educations must be quantitatively and qualitatively improved, including psychological treatments. The current move of the pharmaceutical industry away from brain related indications must be halted and reversed. Continued research into the cost of the many disorders not included in the present study is warranted. It is essential that not only the EU but also the national governments forcefully support these initiatives.

We examine whether adult education delays retirement to potentially increase labour force participation among the elderly, a mechanism suggested in the OECD strategy for “active ageing” and the “Lisbon strategy” of the EU. Using register data from Sweden, we analyse transcripts from adult education for the period 1979–2004 and annual earnings 1982–2004. We match samples of treated individuals, in adult education 1986–1989, and untreated on the propensity score. The timing of exit from the workforce is assessed by non-parametric estimation of survival rates in the labour force. The results indicate no effects of adult education on the timing of retirement.

The normative challenges that emerge from a global-local tension, particularly with regard to the supra-legal normativity structures, such as ethical, aesthetical, or creedal, are addressed here. This study investigates a globally operating company that successfully adapted to the local ethical conditions, which contributed to its achievement of business success. Theoretically regarded, it is not clear how the phenomena of globalisation should be conceived. This investigation assumes a novel approach to the conceptual elaboration of globalisation, based upon some selected components from the Cosmonomic philosophy of H. Dooyeweerd. A multi-modal analysis of this case is presented, which uncovers inherent normativity structures governing the involved actors. This in turn provides a rationale for why the alignment between the ethical and economic norms may be congruent and positive. In this way, some initial and tentative proposals are advanced here for an alternative approach to the conception of the phenomena of globalisation.

Strategies are important in today's highly competitive environments. Businesses as well as public sector organisations need a unifying logic, which emerges out of dialogues among its members and guides their actions. The organisation's Control System has potential to become a key to this, and itself a source of competitiveness. "Controlling for Competitiveness" describes how management control is crucial in mobilizing, using and communicating the knowledge and skills of managers and employees. Controllers should design situation-specific control systems, assuring that actions will be based on appropriate information and incentives. Enterprise Systems facilitate coordination and information exchange, thus enabling the development of a consistent and congruent strategy throughout the organisation. The involvement of all levels of management as well as most employees in this process creates motivation and commitment to the organisation's strategy. It also prepares for executing strategy through a creative use of metrics, decision tools and clarified responsibilities. The authors underline the need to understand management control as part of the organisation's control mix (control package). They provide numerous examples of how systems and people interact in shaping a strategic focus in private as well as publicly owned organisations. In addition to the authors' experiences from research and consultancy, the book is based on recent interviews with 16 leading, complex organisations in the private and public sector. Numerous examples from these and other organisations are provided.

Technological and business-model related developments have continued to push the view that services and not software packages are the upcoming commodities within IT. This can be seen in the wide-spread adoption of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) as the de-facto standard for new systems, and the radical increase in Software as a Service and other Cloud Computing based technologies as the business-models of choice for IT procurement. This&#8221; turn-to-services&#8221; brings with it promises of a better fit between IT supply and the changing demands of customers, and an increased competition between interoperable services in the market. Public Sector IT Procurement (PSITP) has yet to see mainstream adoption of these new business-models, yet the promises of reduced price and increased fit are still there. This paper builds on the assumptions that high switching cost is a factor that reduces the competition on the market for PSITP (Porter, 1980; Frendell, 1995). The paper presents a design science (Peffers et al, 2007) approach towards studying PSITP switching costs. A model for estimating switching cost is developed and a roadmap for demonstrating and evaluating the model is presented.

This is a study on how senior managers, as professional workers, in a leading ICT company use smartphones, according to new configurations of time and space. Of special interest is how smartphones act as comforting handheld consoles without being rooted in physical location. Three non-physical places, as spatial nodes, are presented: pause in the temporal current, place as a function of the intensity of communication, place in terms of becoming rooted by felt value. It is argued that highlighting non-physical places as structures emanating from the use of smartphones is an important variable to account for when studying how professionals increasingly use smartphones, both in instrumental and non-instrumental terms.

This thesis consists of four essays.The first essay, "Separations, Sorting and Cyclical Unemployment", establishes a new fact about the compositional changes in the pool of unemployed over the U.S. business cycle and evaluates a number of theories that can potentially explain it. Using longitudinal micro-data from the Current Population Survey 1979-2008, it documents that in recessions the pool of unemployed shifts towards workers with high wages in their previous job. The essay also shows that a search-matching model with endogenous separations and worker heterogeneity in terms of ability has difficulty in explaining these patterns, but an extension of the model with credit-constraint shocks does much better in accounting for the new fact.The second essay, "The Lot of the Unemployed: A Time Use Perspective", provides new evidence on the time use of employed and unemployed individuals in 14 countries. It devotes particular attention to characterizing and modeling job search intensity, measured by the amount of time devoted to searching for a new job. Job search intensity varies considerably across countries, and is higher in countries that have higher wage dispersion.The third essay, "Job Search and Unemployment Insurance: New Evidence from Time Use Data", examines the relationship between Unemployment Insurance and job search intensity. Among the major findings are that, across the U.S. states, job search is inversely related to the generosity of unemployment benefits and that job search intensity for those eligible for Unemployment Insurance increases prior to benefit exhaustion.The fourth essay, "On-the-Job Search and Wage Dispersion: New Evidence from Time Use Data", finds that on-the-job search effort, modeled as time allocated to job search activities, is decreasing in the wage of the current job. The evidence presented is consistent with models where similar workers face wage dispersion and invest time in order to ﬁnd better paying jobs.